Don went next, repeating Leo’s words and actions exactly. Nick was last and did the same. Mathis then picked up the ritual once more.
“The offering has been made. The blood has been spilled. I call upon the spirits to hear our plea, to protect Kaslea from the dragon which has been terrorizing the kingdom for many months. I call upon the spirits to end the suffering of Kaslea.” Mathis bowed his head. “So mote it be.”
They waited. Nothing happened. Blood continued to drip, and the wind whistled in the trees. Several minutes passed. Leo shifted awkwardly and looked over at Don, who rolled his eyes. Nick shrugged in answer to the unspoken question. They waited. This was Mathis’s kingdom; this was the ritual his prince had sent them on. They would stand here until he ended it, until he acknowledged that it hadn’t worked, that nothing had happened.
The ritual had failed.
Although saying that it had failed implied that it had had a chance of working in the first place. Leo couldn’t help but wonder whether it was just a matter of faith. People in the past had done this, and then the kingdom had recovered from whatever had ailed it. They had similar superstitions on Earth; people remembered the times it worked and forgot all the times it didn’t.
Five minutes after the ritual had concluded and still nothing had happened, Mathis raised his head. He looked troubled but resolute. “Let us repeat the ritual. Kaslea depends on its success.”
“Sure thing,” Leo agreed. They were already bleeding; trying it again once more wouldn’t hurt. He doubted the outcome would be any different a second time. However, for Mathis’s sake if nothing else, he wouldn’t mind being proven wrong.
Unfortunately, Leo wasn’t wrong. Repeating the ritual a second time produced as much result as the first time—nothing. There was no light, no glow, no sign that anything had happened at all beyond the drying blood on the stone, which time and the weather would soon wash away.
Mathis stepped back, despair etched on his face. “Thank you for your forbearance, my friends,” he managed. Mathis staggered over to a low crumbling wall and perched on it, his armor clanking against the stone. He couldn’t remain standing any longer. It was all over.
“It is useless; the ritual has failed. It is a dark omen; the light has forsaken this land. We are all doomed,” Mathis muttered brokenly. All the hope, all the fight had been taken out of him. The stones hadn’t glowed; the promise of the sorcerer Cyrus had come to nothing.
“We’re not doomed,” Leo argued automatically, but his words sounded hollow even to his ears. The despair over their own fruitless quest was getting to him. It was hard to offer hope when his heart felt just as crushed.
The timing could not have been more coincidentally perfect. A roar cut through the air, the dragon making its presence known, as if it was shouting its defiance. It would not be vanquished; it would not be banished. The roar was muted; the dragon was not close. They would likely not be its victims today.
Instead, its destruction would be visited on innocents, on those ill-equipped to fight back. It could be a village much like the one they had ‘saved’ on the border. It could even be that village. The dragon was somewhat discriminate in its targets; it hadn’t torched the forest, but aside from not having hit Termont, it didn’t seem to care what village it burned.
This could not stand. Leo felt sick, remembering the destroyed village he had passed through the first day he had arrived in Kaslea. The thick smoke that had spiraled into the air, the ash of the simple dwellings and the burned bodies, twisted by the heat and their terror. He didn’t need to think hard to conjure up the image of the dead gunnery sergeant, one of their own.
Leo thought of the vibrant village of people who had looked to them as saviors, all because their rifles made unfamiliar noises. All those people alive, going about their business, suddenly turned to barbeque—and for what reason? The dragon didn’t seem to gorge itself on its victims; so many more died than was necessary. The bodies lay where they fell, a testament to the dragon’s power, its dominance, and little else. It was such a waste. A wild animal marking its territory. It had to stop.
“We’re not doomed,” Leo repeated, a little more sure of himself this time. “We just need to handle this ourselves.”
Don looked at Leo in surprise. Nick just nodded in agreement. His mind had traveled back to that border village too, and the image of the woman and her baby, so like his own family back on Earth. This wasn’t their fight. It wasn’t their problem; this wasn’t their world. They could argue that these people weren’t real, and weren’t worth their help. However, they were real, and they did need help.
There were two arguments for forging on and taking care of the dragon themselves, one logical and one sentimental. The sentimental argument was simple. As desperate as their own situation was, Earth may already be lost. They had to at least save some lives, at least accomplish something, or they might lose their sanity. A man could only take so much loss and repeated failure.
The logical argument was that their mission ultimately had to come first. They had made a deal with Kaslea, and yes, they had done what had been asked of them. However, the ritual had failed and the dragon still plagued Kaslea. Prince Edmund might be a man of his word and honor their deal anyway, or he might say with Kaslea still under threat that he was more limited in what his kingdom could offer. He might be less enthusiastic in supporting their quest with the other kingdoms.
Whatever way Nick looked at the situation, dealing with the dragon directly made sense.
“Every knight who has tried has died,” Mathis pointed out in warning. However, while his tone was thick with caution, it was also tinged with hope.
“Well, I haven’t met anything yet that can stand up to automatic weapons fire and a chunk of C4,” Leo stated, finally saying out loud what he had thought more than once since learning of the dragon. He only hoped that he was right. After all, he’d never crossed paths with a dragon before, either.
“Don?” Leo looked at his best friend. Don’s expression was inscrutable. Nick’s approval of the plan was obvious, and Mathis’s agreement wasn’t in question. However, they could only do this as a team.
Don nodded slowly, then cracked a wry grin. “Slaying a dragon is very cliché,” he joked. “Don’t think we can exactly give it a pass. I mean, come on, a dragon? It’s got to be done.”
“It’s decided, then,” Leo stated. “Mathis, do you know where the dragon’s lair is?”
“Dragon’s lair,” Don muttered, laughing.
Leo shot him a grin. It was a weird thing to say, but then, the world hadn’t made sense since the Roswell Greys had invaded Earth. If they could fight aliens in New York—in reality, and not a summer blockbuster movie—a dragon’s lair wasn’t exactly much of a stretch.
“The dragon has a home in the mountains.” Mathis pointed at the snowcapped peaks in the distance, north of their position.
Nick groaned. “How many days to get there?”
“That is a concern, Mathis. While we’re helping you, it’s our world that burns,” Leo said, his gut twisting.
“It is not as far as you would think. Even with resting the horses, we could make it by midday the day after tomorrow,” Mathis promised.
Leo grimaced. Two days just to get there. But they had little choice. “Okay, Nick, break out the miracle goop. We need to get going,” Leo ordered.
Five minutes later and they were back in the saddle. Leo doubted he would ever feel comfortable on the back of a horse. In all honesty, he felt vulnerable and exposed. It was like being on the back of a motorbike, but with less control. At least in a Humvee there was a buffer of metal and toughened glass between him and being raked with bullets.
Not that bullets were likely in this medieval world of magic, but there were other dangers. Arrows, for one, and they flew silently, no sound of a shot to warn them to dive for cover. Dragon fire could also hit them, or spells, if magic did actually exist, plus dangers they didn’t even know about. At least if he
was on his own two feet he felt more in control; a horse was an animal and had a mind of its own.
Leo knew from history class that some soldiers even as recently as World War Two had ridden horses into battle. It wasn’t something he would have done willingly, but at least they had likely been experienced riders. His first time on a horse had just been a couple of days previously.
It was early afternoon. They had been riding for a couple of hours when the acrid smell of smoke assaulted Leo’s nose. Within the forest as they were, their view of the sky was obscured. However, once he could smell it, he could see it, spiraling into the sky.
The dragon had struck again.
Mathis had taken point, but Leo urged his horse on faster, overtaking the knight. He knew the knight didn’t want to get near the village the dragon had claimed. Leo had seen his reticence once already. However, Leo had to see. He had to know if it was the dragon for certain or just a bonfire. Not that he needed a physical reminder that they’d made the right decision.
Leo could feel the fire before he saw the dancing flames. He swiftly slid from the saddle and looped the reins around the nearest tree so the horse would stay put, and then he jogged forward.
“Guys, on me,” Leo shouted the second the trees thinned enough for him to see into the clearing and to the burning village.
Don and Nick came up behind him, one by each shoulder. The village was fully engulfed; everything was burning. The dragon had claimed another village as its victim. Each man silently swore it would be the last village destroyed—and then they heard the screams.
They sprinted forward into the inferno. The crackling of the wood buildings surrounded them. The smoke was thick and choking; it stung Leo’s eyes and caught in his throat. The heat prickled his skin, a clear recommendation that they should leave.
Leo pressed forward. There was screaming; there were people still trapped. They had to help them. They had to try and save them. There was a well in the center of the village. If they could dampen the fire, maybe they could reach the terrified, dying villagers.
“Water,” Leo yelled.
He grabbed the handle to pull the bucket up, and wound it as fast as he could. Within seconds, Don was at his side. With his help, Leo unhooked the heavy bucket from the well. Carrying the bucket together, they staggered over to the building that they could hear the terrified screams emanating from.
They chucked the water on the flames, but it made no difference; they could have spat on the fire for all the good it did. The flames were too heavy, the building too engulfed for them to kick it down and make entry.
Leo’s head was already starting to spin. He needed oxygen, fresh air. He needed out of this heat. It felt like they were in hell. There was nothing they could do. It had been a fool’s hope to even try.
“Evac, evac,” Leo croaked. He ran back out of the village in the same direction from where they had entered.
When he hit the tree line, the smoke thinned. He pitched to the ground, choking, gasping, struggling to breathe.
Mathis knelt at his side. “My friend, will you be well?” he asked urgently. He rolled Leo onto his back. Tears streamed from Leo’s eyes, streaking the soot that had landed because of the smoke.
“Don, Nick?” Leo choked out in question.
“They are here,” Mathis confirmed, his eyes filled with concern. Leo hadn’t heard the sound of their coughing over his own.
All Leo could hear aside from his own labored breathing and Mathis’s relieving words were the screams that still echoed from inside the burning village. Mercifully, a moment later, they finally stopped. It was a miracle that they had continued on for such a long time. It was an idle thought, and one Leo paid no attention to, which was perhaps a mistake.
*****
A few hundred yards away, insulated from the smoke by a magical shield, Queen Eleanor watched them. Pure air filled her lungs; she could not smell the acrid smoke, nor did she wish to smell like a bonfire on her return to the palace.
The victims of the dragon had screamed on its arrival—for all of a few seconds. The few survivors of the first wave had quickly succumbed to the second. The dragon never left anyone alive, and the fires had been burning for over an hour. She had cast an illusion to cause the screams. She had wished to see what the ‘heroes of Kaslea’ would do.
Eleanor didn’t often feel anything akin to respect for anyone. For the most part, everyone she encountered was utterly predictable in their inadequacies. She didn’t expect much, and so she was rarely disappointed. However, the actions of these strangers were once more worthy of some consideration. The knight of the realm had been too afraid and too filled with superstition to act. Eleanor had expected him to remain with the horses, in the safety of the tree line, and that was what had happened.
These strangers had run into the fire, the actions of reckless heroes. However, most reckless heroes never knew when to stop. They had no sense, no understanding of the consequences. They risked their lives without regard, and it was no surprise that most of them died pointless deaths. These strangers, these men that identified themselves as marines from Earth, had risked their lives, but they had seen the futility of their actions. They had some sense of self-preservation.
One encounter was not enough to draw a conclusion. It was possible, though, that they had the rare combination of courage and intelligence. That would make them even more worthy of being converted into allies. Such men would easily make the hubris of Gatlan fall, as well as the kingdoms beyond—if she could make use of them, and if they did not prove themselves as disappointing as everyone else she had ever encountered first.
With a thought and a flash of flame, Eleanor teleported herself back to her palace. She had gone completely unnoticed by the four men she had observed.
*****
It took the better part of half an hour, and more water than was prudent, for Leo to be able to breathe normally once more. A somber mood had overtaken the group. It was ridiculous, really; there was nothing they could have done. Those people had been dead the second the dragon had decided to torch their village. The dragon had never left any survivors. Perhaps that was why it stung; they had come close to finally changing things for the better—and they’d failed.
Those villagers had died. They couldn’t save them.
Leo felt numb. The same despair which had crept upon Mathis at the failure of the ritual now threatened him. Was their failure here a sign of what was to come? A dark omen that their quest had failed? If they couldn’t save these people, who was to say they could even save themselves? They were in way over their heads here. It might always feel darker before the dawn, but Leo wasn’t even sure there was light ever coming on the horizon.
If they failed to take the dragon down, then they would likely fail utterly. They wouldn’t even know the fate of Earth, and two worlds would burn for their incompetence. No, he couldn’t let that happen. They had to win. The dragon had to die, and the future had to be better than this. He had to believe that.
Failure was not an option.
“Time to move,” Leo ordered hoarsely.
Don and Nick looked as weary and disheveled as he felt. They had to push on, though; they needed to move forwards, because they sure as hell couldn’t go back. So long as they kept on moving, they could fool themselves until thinking there was progress, fool themselves into thinking that maybe they were making a difference.
It was time to go slay a dragon.
Chapter Twenty
In the kingdom of Sintiya, Queen Eleanor was once more in her throne room. The day was coming to a close; soon she would partake of her evening meal and then retire. It had been another disappointing day.
Neither Yannick nor her knights had yet uncovered the information she had asked for on the legend of the light in the darkness. The fit of optimism she had had a week earlier regarding the war with Gatlan had been decidedly premature. Unless something changed, the war may yet stretch on for months, although she doubted it would
last another winter.
That, at least, was a small consolation.
“An envoy approaches from Gatlan, your Majesty,” a knight told her, bowing low on bended knee.
Eleanor raised a sculpted eyebrow. She wondered what Gatlan wanted this time. With a smirk, she wondered if they would be so foolish as to offer marriage once more.
She was only a woman. It wasn’t as if they had to accept that she had said no; they would never have enough respect for that. That was why Gatlan would fall to her. That was why she would rule over all the known kingdoms. Underestimated because she was a woman. She would make them respect her.
Her knights escorted the envoy inside. It wasn’t the same pathetic knight as last time, who had been so weak and eager to please. The last knight had been slight, wearing more leather than plate, built for speed and not strength. This knight was a great beast of a man, in full armor, and Eleanor smirked, wondering if Gatlan was trying to intimidate her.
Once she had become queen, she had no longer hidden her magical abilities, but she hadn’t advertised them outside of her castle, either. It was possible Gatlan did not believe the rumors, for if they did, then they would have known that no mere knight would prove a challenge.
“Your Majesty, Queen Eleanor. I am here to convey a message from my king, King Oswald of Gatlan.” The knight bent slightly at the waist and inclined his head.
It was the bare minimum gesture of respect. She was not his queen—yet—but she was a queen. From a mere knight, that was a grave insult.
Eleanor’s palm prickled with barely contained magic. She wanted to teach him his place, to give him a very personal message to relay to King Oswald, but she supposed she should hear what his message was first. Then she could punish his disrespect.
Divided (#1 Divided Destiny) Page 20
